Joe Dolce: Two Poems

An Inconvenient Frogsicle

Real frogs behave differently.  —Paul Krugman

Toss them in 100°C water—they frog-leap out.

But gradually increase heat,

at rate less than .2°C per minute,

and dull-witted amphibians dreamily

croak off to Elysium lilypads—

or so the story goes, according to Sedgwick, in

On the Variation of Reflex Excitability

in the Frog induced by changes of Temperature (1882).

La grenouille bouillie has been variously applied,

during the Cold War, to relations with the Soviet Union,

by survivalists—at the impending collapse of civilization—

over inaction to climate change, ribbited

by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth,

to describe the slow erosion of civil rights,

and even to those who remain

in abusive relationships.

Ad frognitum.

No one ever metaphornicates

about Rana sylvatica,

the Alaskan Wood Frog,

able to exist for weeks,

with two-thirds of body-water frozen solid,

breath stopped, heart still, waste production halted.

Cryoprotectants help its cells survive.

A frog-shaped block of ice.

Spring-thawed Lazarus.

Joe Dolce

Nachtmahr

Not horse, but demon,

goblin-like hobbling, of dreaming,

bat-leathery sarcoma,

exploding the sleep-cave.

I snap awake, as from a coma,

crawling out of fear-grave,

staggering, blind,

zombie shuffling, anywhere,

wanting to hurt someone, in kind,

narrowed in nightmare,

grabbing a phantom shirt, ready to punch

can’t stop, retreat,

standing still, hunched,

untwisting my twisted sheet.

This house is queer, the bedroom scares,

I don’t want to go back in there.

I calm myself, straddle a chair,

I write something down, writing deep,

writing myself steeply back to sleep.

Joe Dolce